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Fiore blinked at him. It took him a moment to recall the anodyne Enzo had dosed him with but a few moments ago. He took stock of the throbbing ache beneath the bandages. “It’s dulled a little.”
Enzo held his gaze. “Something else troubles you.”
Not just his body but his soul laid bare to Enzo’s eyes, apparently. Fiore swallowed hard and settled on telling a different truth. “My mouth tastes awful.”
Enzo laughed, much to Fiore’s relief. Then he arose to fetch pitcher, basin, brush, and tooth-powder from the wash-stand.
Fiore did indeed feel much improved after scrubbing the remnants of stale effluvia from his teeth and tongue. Enzo not only poured fresh water for multiple rinses but held the basin for him to spit into. Few men of any rank would suffer such an indignity. Yet Enzo, who could be no less than a patrizio, volunteered for the position. Likewise, when Fiore had done brushing his teeth, Enzo put every article back into its proper place, rinsing the basin for good measure.
“Are you hungry at all?” Enzo asked as he returned to Fiore’s bedside.
Fiore furrowed his brow as he considered the question. He supposed some of the ache in his guts might be hunger. “Perhaps.”
“There’s brioche left over from breakfast—I had Carlotta bring some extra in case you awoke earlier. Or I could send for something else, if you’d prefer. Pastissada de caval is perfectly healthful for an invalid.”
Fiore stared at Enzo whilst the cogs of his mind scraped together to perform slow and labored calculations. Horse stew—or any stew, really—took hours to prepare. Which meant Enzo must have thought ahead and ordered it well beforehand. What had probably been second-nature to Enzo nonetheless struck something in Fiore’s heart. To have a delicacy prepared on behalf of his invalid appetite…
And yet, it wasn’t what he hungered for.
Enzo furrowed his brow at Fiore’s continued silence. “Is there something else?”
Perpetually. And it seemed as though its shadow would haunt Fiore until he summoned all his courage and thrust his sword straight into its heart. He drew in a shuddering breath. “You’ve seen all of me, outside and in. May I not see your face?”
A tense silence fell between them.
That was it then, Fiore thought. He’d tested all boundaries and found one which would not budge. Guts and gore were all well and good. But the bauta balked at revealing his face. Now Enzo would turn his back and leave Fiore behind forevermore—fit punishment for foolish Orpheus demanding to gaze upon his Eurydice.
But then, to Fiore’s great astonishment, Enzo brought his hands up to the ties holding the bauta mask in place. He bowed his head as his fingertips worked against the knot. The ties fell free. His fingers slipped beneath the jutting jawline and, after a moment’s hesitation and a sharp inhale, Enzo pulled the mask off altogether.
Fiore beheld a long and lean face not much older than his own, though it had seen far more injury. A scar divided it, running from above the left brow over the broken aquiline nose to split the full lips just before the corner of the perfect mouth. It trailed off at the keen edge of a jaw whose strength rivalled the bauta mask that had hidden it from Fiore’s view for so long. Whatever blade had dealt the blow had cut deep and split wide. Not long healed, either, by Fiore’s reckoning. An older and shallower wound scored a line over the left cheek which did nothing to mar the structure of the sharp bone beneath. The eyes appeared much the same—their dark depths both haunting and haunted—though, now that he could see how the heavy brows knit above them, he found their gaze softer and more gentle than ever before. They fixed him now with a look of hesitation as Enzo waited, Fiore presumed, to see what Fiore thought of him.
Fiore reached out his hand to him.
Enzo didn’t flinch.
Fiore laid his palm against that keen-edged jaw and stroked the sharp cheekbone with his thumb.
Enzo shut his eyes and leaned into the caress. Then he turned his head, just enough to press a tender kiss to the inside of Fiore’s wrist.
Fiore cupped Enzo’s face in his hand to draw him down. Enzo followed where he led, until not a hair’s breadth lay between their lips. Fiore shut his eyes.
The kiss Enzo bestowed upon him held every unspoken tenderness that had passed between them. Everything Fiore had ever wondered at. Everything he could have ever wanted. Enzo kissed like one half-afraid of his own desires, yet desperate to sate the yearning hunger within him.
And Fiore wanted nothing more than to give him all he hungered for.
Still, the need for breath demanded they break off long before Fiore felt satisfied.
Enzo gazed down at him with something like wonder in his dark eyes, as if he couldn’t quite believe his own good fortune. Softly, like one who feared to break a spell, he asked, “Not half-bad, then?”
Fiore stared. How Enzo could find this face reflected back at him in the mirror every morning and not know it for one of the most beautiful faces in all the world, he couldn’t fathom. He opened his mouth to tell him so. Instead, he replied, “If I had any strength in me, I would fuck you until you had none.”
Enzo raised his brows. Then a low, soft, sonorous laugh rumbled up from deep within his chest.
And, to Fiore’s immense satisfaction, he bent to kiss him again.
~
The remainder of the afternoon passed in a delightful dreamlike haze. In Fiore’s estimation, they had a great deal of kissing to make up for. He did his able best to supply the lack, in between dozing off and tending to his infirmity.
